Backuppc keeps hanging on restore

I am trying to complete a restore and let the restore go for two days. When I went to troubleshoot I found that by running the command "lsof | grep rsync" I could see the current file it was trying to restore and it was hung on this file. However, when I try to run restore again, it just ends up hanging on a different file. Any assistance to figure out what is going on would be appreciated. I am currently on version 3.3.1 of BackupPC. The rsync version on BackupPC server is rsync version 3.1.2pre1. The rsync version on the target server is rsync version 3.0.6.

I am trying to complete a restore and let the restore go for two days. When I went to troubleshoot I found that by running the command "lsof | grep rsync" I could see the current file it was trying to restore and it was hung on this file. However, when I try to run restore again, it just ends up hanging on a different file. Any assistance to figure out what is going on would be appreciated. I am currently on version 3.3.1 of BackupPC. The rsync version on BackupPC server is rsync version 3.1.2pre1. The rsync version on the target server is rsync version 3.0.6.

It always seems to hang up on larger files, although I have plenty of space on my drive.

I am trying to complete a restore and let the restore go for two days. When I went to troubleshoot I found that by running the command "lsof | grep rsync" I could see the current file it was trying to restore and it was hung on this file. However, when I try to run restore again, it just ends up hanging on a different file. Any assistance to figure out what is going on would be appreciated. I am currently on version 3.3.1 of BackupPC. The rsync version on BackupPC server is rsync version 3.1.2pre1. The rsync version on the target server is rsync version 3.0.6.

It always seems to hang up on larger files, although I have plenty of space on my drive.

On 07/21 06:12 , robp2175 wrote:
[quote]The restore seems to be getting stuck on the larger files. There is plenty of space on the disk.
[/quote]
My advice would be to try doing a restore using tar and netcat, but only
because that's what I do and it works reliably for me.

This would at least allow you to narrow it down to a problem with rsync, or
BackupPC itself.

2. on the backuppc server, use BackupPC_tarCreate to build a tarball of
the backup you want, pipe that through gzip, then pipe it to netcat in
order to send it across the wire
/usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s /
/|gzip| nc 192.168.123.123 8888

Run /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate without any arguments to get
a (entirely too brief) help message.

If it's a Windows box you're restoring to, the above will still work, you'll
just need the cygwin tools installed.

This seems to be working nicely, although not at all ideal. May I ask how this will help me troubleshoot my issue? Given how well this method is performing, It does seem like it is an rsync issue, but I have tried a few versions of rsync and all are giving me the issue. Argh.

This method is working great to restore my backup, so thank you very much, it is greatly appreciated.

I did have to change a couple of commands to make this work, for those folks whom stumble upon this.

First of all, I had to install netcat
Yum install nc

Then on the target box (notice I removed the -p, which was not necessary, I am guessing this is dependent on your distro and/or netcat version):
nc -p 8888|tar xzvp -C /path/to/target/dir

Lastly on the backuppc box:
su backuppc (in case you forget this must be run as the backuppc user)
/usr/share/BackupPC/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s / /|gzip| nc <ip/hostname of target box> 8888
I highly recommend reading the help file, although brief, should be enough to assist with the format of the above command.

On 07/21 06:12 , robp2175 wrote:
[quote]The restore seems to be getting stuck on the larger files. There is plenty of space on the disk.
[/quote]
My advice would be to try doing a restore using tar and netcat, but only because that's what I do and it works reliably for me.

This would at least allow you to narrow it down to a problem with rsync, or BackupPC itself.

2. on the backuppc server, use BackupPC_tarCreate to build a tarball of the backup you want, pipe that through gzip, then pipe it to netcat in order to send it across the wire
/usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s / /|gzip| nc 192.168.123.123 8888

Run /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate without any arguments to get a (entirely too brief) help message.

If it's a Windows box you're restoring to, the above will still work, you'll just need the cygwin tools installed.

On 07/21 02:41 , Pelletier, Robert wrote:
[quote]This seems to be working nicely, although not at all ideal. May I ask how this will help me troubleshoot my issue? Given how well this method is performing, It does seem like it is an rsync issue, but I have tried a few versions of rsync and all are giving me the issue. Argh.
[/quote]
Since I always just stop at doing backups this way (I don't trust giving the
backup server write permissions to the client), all I can say is that at
least we've narrowed your problem down to something in the rsync
implementation.

I have seen rsync hang occasionally when backing up a client, so seeing it
hang when restoring to a client doesn't surprise me.

[quote]This method is working great to restore my backup, so thank you very much, it is greatly appreciated.

I did have to change a couple of commands to make this work, for those folks whom stumble upon this.

First of all, I had to install netcat
Yum install nc

Then on the target box (notice I removed the -p, which was not necessary, I am guessing this is dependent on your distro and/or netcat version):
nc -p 8888|tar xzvp -C /path/to/target/dir

Lastly on the backuppc box:
su backuppc (in case you forget this must be run as the backuppc user)
/usr/share/BackupPC/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s / /|gzip| nc <ip/hostname of target box> 8888
I highly recommend reading the help file, although brief, should be enough to assist with the format of the above command.
[/quote]
Yeah, I wrote those instructions quite a few years ago and filed them away
in a document, and haven't updated them since. The netcat options changed
slightly since then.

This seems to be working nicely, although not at all ideal. May I ask how
this will help me troubleshoot my issue? Given how well this method is
performing, It does seem like it is an rsync issue, but I have tried a few
versions of rsync and all are giving me the issue. Argh.

This method is working great to restore my backup, so thank you very much,
it is greatly appreciated.

I did have to change a couple of commands to make this work, for those folks
whom stumble upon this.

First of all, I had to install netcat
Yum install nc

Then on the target box (notice I removed the -p, which was not necessary, I
am guessing this is dependent on your distro and/or netcat version):
nc -p 8888|tar xzvp -C /path/to/target/dir

Lastly on the backuppc box:
su backuppc (in case you forget this must be run as the backuppc
user)
/usr/share/BackupPC/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s / /|gzip|
nc <ip/hostname of target box> 8888
I highly recommend reading the help file, although brief, should be enough
to assist with the format of the above command.

On 07/21 06:12 , robp2175 wrote:
[quote]The restore seems to be getting stuck on the larger files. There is plenty
of space on the disk.
[/quote]
My advice would be to try doing a restore using tar and netcat, but only
because that's what I do and it works reliably for me.

This would at least allow you to narrow it down to a problem with rsync, or
BackupPC itself.

2. on the backuppc server, use BackupPC_tarCreate to build a tarball of the
backup you want, pipe that through gzip, then pipe it to netcat in order to
send it across the wire
/usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s /
/|gzip| nc 192.168.123.123 8888

Run /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate without any arguments to get
a (entirely too brief) help message.

If it's a Windows box you're restoring to, the above will still work, you'll
just need the cygwin tools installed.

This seems to be working nicely, although not at all ideal. May I ask how this will help me troubleshoot my issue? Given how well this method is performing, It does seem like it is an rsync issue, but I have tried a few versions of rsync and all are giving me the issue. Argh.

This method is working great to restore my backup, so thank you very much, it is greatly appreciated.

I did have to change a couple of commands to make this work, for those folks whom stumble upon this.

First of all, I had to install netcat
Yum install nc

Then on the target box (notice I removed the -p, which was not necessary, I am guessing this is dependent on your distro and/or netcat version):
nc -p 8888|tar xzvp -C /path/to/target/dir

Lastly on the backuppc box:
su backuppc (in case you forget this must be run as the backuppc
user)
/usr/share/BackupPC/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s / /|gzip| nc <ip/hostname of target box> 8888 I highly recommend reading the help file, although brief, should be enough to assist with the format of the above command.

On 07/21 06:12 , robp2175 wrote:
[quote]The restore seems to be getting stuck on the larger files. There is
plenty of space on the disk.
[/quote]
My advice would be to try doing a restore using tar and netcat, but only because that's what I do and it works reliably for me.

This would at least allow you to narrow it down to a problem with rsync, or BackupPC itself.

2. on the backuppc server, use BackupPC_tarCreate to build a tarball of the backup you want, pipe that through gzip, then pipe it to netcat in order to send it across the wire
/usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate -h <hostname> -n -1 -s / /|gzip| nc 192.168.123.123 8888

Run /usr/share/backuppc/bin/BackupPC_tarCreate without any arguments to get a (entirely too brief) help message.

If it's a Windows box you're restoring to, the above will still work, you'll just need the cygwin tools installed.